Sweet Briar

What do you do when a college you know and love so well decides it isn't financially feasible for them to remain open any more?  When they say they're closing shop, effective the end of this semester?

Well, you maybe just sit and cry for a while.  Because it's like losing a friend.  A friend you haven't seen in a while, granted, but who you still think of often.  A friend who makes you smile, and think about all the things you did together.  The growing up you did together.  The sadness you felt when you parted ways.  And the delight every time you meet again.

I think anyone who had even a casual relationship with Sweet Briar probably feels a little bit the same way.  It's an easy place to fall in love with.  3,000 acres of beauty in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains.  Lovely buildings.  Amazing horse pastures.  Hiking and riding trails through the woods.

And then after you cry a bit, you ask "why" and do your research all around the FaceBook, and commiserate with fellow Sweet Briar friends, and actually it maybe works out ok in the short term because you suddenly have a deadline to go to Virginia for one last visit to your old friend Sweet Briar.  And while you're down there you may as well drive another 2 hours to visit your other favorite place on earth and dear friend, Virginia Tech.

A well-meaning group of ladies, some of whom I knew and taught when I was there, have headed up a "Save Sweet Briar" group, trying to fight to save their friend.  The needs to save the college are many - they really need lots of money, and they really really need lots more enrollment.  And who, really, is super excited about an all-female liberal arts college in the middle of nowhere?  Not very many people, apparently.

The fun part that has come out of the sadness is that so many of these ladies are also posting photos from their times at Sweet Briar.  It has made me happy to reminisce with them.  Please allow me to do a bit of the same:

The view from out my front door (like, LITERALLY, out my front door) was second to none.  It made it easier to get up and work my butt off every morning.

My little tiny house was little and tiny, but it was home.  It had four bedrooms and two bathrooms, and I used, usually, exactly half the house.  Partway through my tenure the house was fitted with a second mini-kitchen, allowing two girls to stay at the house with me over break but still have their own space.  I don't know what makes a girl want to stay at the barn for spring break instead of going to Florida, but I always appreciated when they did.  I was shocked and horrified when I took my Frazier to Sweet Briar for a summer clinic in 2008 or so, and saw that a tree had fallen on my little house and torn it right in two.  My poor little house.

I loved it when people came to visit.  Suarezes visited a few times on their RV travels.  They would park their RV right in the driveway, plug in, and have a free camping site under the trees.  The tractor probably woke them up at 5AM, same as it woke me up.  You got used to it after a while.  It was an easy place to come to if you were going to Tech for a football game.  An easy two hour drive over the mountains to see my Hokie friends for a weekend.  An easy place for Hokie friends to stop and drop off dogs on their way to Richmond, so the dogs could play in the country and jump out of my fence and chase deer for a weekend.  A fine place for my cousin to stay for a couple days while his car got repaired in Lexington, just over the mountain.  He still has fond memories of the two days he spent tromping around the woods and the fields, and the vast vast quantity of deer he saw grazing in the Hunter Trial field.  It was in the middle of nowhere, and yet still in the middle of everything.  So long as you didn't mind driving a couple hours.

It was a lovely place to work.  And sometimes a lonely place to work.  I worked long and hard hours.  I got up in the middle of the night to load a horse on to a van or welcome horses to the barn.  I was on call many weekends.  I was at the barn long in to the night with the slowest farrier known to man, who became a dear friend because we spent so much time together, every Tuesday and Friday.  It was not necessarily a sustainable place to work - I could not have done it with a husband, and certainly not with kids.  But for a single girl who doesn't mind hard work, it was a good job.  I remember the horses more than the students.  Some students names I can place.  But the horses stick with me for longer.  The kids were just "Mitch's mom" or "Al's mom" or "Artie's mom".  And that was ok.  Because to them, I was mostly "CoCo's mom".  Oh, that CoCo.  Sweet Briar is heaven for a dog, and she loved it there.  She came everywhere with me.  She stayed outside the outdoor ring while I rode.  She paced up and down the side of the indoor while I rode, because she couldn't see me.  She came on trail rides with me, til I took her out on one really long one.  After that she got smart and waited in the driveway of the barn.  She slept on a shelf in my office.  She stayed outside the stall while I was checking horses.  The kids adored her.  I was, to them, definitely only "CoCo's mom".

When it came time to get married, there was only one place that I considered.  Sweet Briar.  I planned a wedding from four hours away.  And it was everything I hoped it would be.  The weather held for long enough for us to get married outside.  The location was amazing.  The dogwoods were in bloom.  The iris bloomed just that week, just for me I think.  My Sweet Briar friends helped with rehearsal dinner and dog sitting and maybe, just maybe, some iris stealing from the President's front yard, for some of my flower arrangements.  Our wedding cake from the "Praise the Lord" bakery was the best cake I have ever had, anywhere.  The event staff at the Inn were lovely, and still many of my friends say what a lovely day it was, and how much fun they had, and how they really appreciated being able to walk to their hotel room from the reception.

I don't know yet what is to become of the college.  Of the 3,000 acres, and the buildings, and the barn, and the riding arenas, and all the horses.  I know the college is working hard to help students transfer, and that should be their first priority.  But my heart goes out to my friends who still work at the Riding Center.  What will they do?  Where will they go?  Where will they find a place to call home that is as special?

One of lots of articles about Sweet Briar's closing